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10:43 a.m. - 2014-01-15
Nailed It!

Late-in-life revelation #823- Long fingernails are akin to foot-binding. I couldn't do anything while those demanding fragile claws owned my fingertips. At least I couldn't. Typing? Imposs. Forever backspacing to be rid of the extra letters and misstrikes my dumb talons caused. Housework? No go. Cooking was nutty. Always crap all up beneath my nails and I kept slicing my left thumbnail. I'm no germophobe but digging raw chicken shreds out from under my nails was disgusting. Zipping jeans? Putting earring backs on? What a hassle. Plus the risk of mutilation every time I wiped my poor hoo-ha was downright scary.

The nails had to go.

They're short, yet still paintable and later today will sport a shiny new coat of Sinful Colors 'Sugar Sugar', but for the nonce I am enjoying the freedom of having functional hands again. Still mildly wowed that a reformed nail-gnawer like me could actually grow and maintain dragon lady nails for so long but the tradeoff in loss of dexterity wasn't worth it.

Got a nice little surprise. My one pair of jeans popped a tear in the friction zone between my thighs. And when that happens the jeans are a goner. The material is too worn and tender to make repairs. Oh, sometimes you can extend their life with iron-on patches, but it's usually a case of patch one tear and another will open along the edge of the patch because the whole inner thigh region has turned into tissue paper. So with my one lonely pair of jeans in their death throes I went shopping in the Land of Muffin-Top rejects aka: my dresser where the jeans I'd ballooned out of lived waiting, waiting, waiting for that magical day when I could get my fluffy butt back into them. In a lot of ways my dresser is like the Island of Misfit Toys- the items therein are just a little too 'off' to be loved. Itchy sweaters, bras with unruly shoulder straps, underpants I always forget give me a wedgie until I'm wearing them, graphic tees bearing what I'd thought were funny quips when I bought them and later on remembered I dislike turning my huge hooters into a mobile billboard. And jeans, of course. A denim wonderland of too short inseams, bad back pocket placement, rises too high or too low, but mostly they are the tangible relics of 'Sizes I Used To Be'. There's one pair in there bought when I was in the extremis of my post-divorce "Fuck you, I'm skinny and hot!" phase which I now have trouble getting my arm into but I keep because, hey, for a brief time I was wearing jeans the same goddamn size as the ones I wore in 8th grade.

Then a tiny miracle. There in that abandoned sea of denim were not one but TWO pairs of jeans which fit! A size down from what I'd grudgingly accepted as my permanent reality and yet those jeans fit without a bulge to be seen. Not throwing a parade here, there are trans-Atlantic dirigibles with smaller skins than my 'new' jeans, yet finding out I'm not quite the blob I thought I was is pretty nice. Especially during the countdown to my (eek!) 51st birthday. And not only do the jeans fit, they are of the low-rise variety. I'd resigned myself to poochy Mom jeans with a waistband scant inches below my breasts, but here they are...sexy-ish boot cut hip-huggers that suit my long-waisted bod amazingly well.

My natural waist is several inches below the bottom of my ribcage. When you're as tall as I am this makes for some challenges when shopping for clothes. Women's blouses and tops are never long enough anyhow. Not in the body and certainly not in the sleeve. Add in the (now very droopy low-hanging) Barbie boobs which make button-front shirts an adventure in "Will it button across the knockers?" and it's not a shocker I buy most of my shirts in the men's department. The Big and Tall men's department, thankyouverymuch. Not bitching here, truly. I am well-aware of how off the norm I am for women's clothing and do not resent it (much). I cannot insist all my smaller, shorter-waisted, female normative sisters conform to my Valkyrie-esque stats. Over the years I've learned exactly how to femme a plain white man's dress shirt and it works for me. When the basic building blocks of one's wardrobe are boots, snug jeans, and a white shirt vast playgrounds of accessories open before you. Nipped-waist blazers, scarves, showpiece necklaces, bold earrings, great lipstick, pashminas, and as Elton John said, "A pirate smile", well, it's all a girl really needs.

And if I long for lace and frippery and tiaras that's on me to deal with.

It's an obsession I've mostly made peace with thanks to Mick. Because it's not so much that I truly want to be all floofy and nelly, I wanted what those things seem to represent. Mick's devotion has given me my heart's desire...I can be as bold as I wanna be and I am still adorable. Smart and yet still precious. Stronger than strong and he spreads his cape over puddles for me anyway. Mick knows darn well I can do anything I want to, but he's still going to ask me to call when I get there. To say hello, to congratulate me, and tell me he loves me.

As I said in my last entry I am my own worst enemy. I hobbled myself with those damn fingernails. I punished myself for not being a perfect wraith with ill-fitting nerd jeans. I stand on the edge with a nearly finished absolutely saleable manuscript and tot up all the ways I've failed and am undeserving of good things, especially success as a writer. (Such a selfish pursuit, using my time and energy on my work instead of cooking and tending and slaving for my family as I am supposed to.) Refusing to accept that I can be mighty and still be wanted, though Mick has proved he won't fail me or punish me for my success a dozen times over.

Oy, why is it so hard to be brave?

To continue from last time...

'We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be?'